Hilliard recalls when he was key LSU running back

BATON ROUGE – There was a time when Kenny Hilliard was practically Leonard Fournette, and that was after he actually played at LSU.

Big, fast and strong. That is Fournette, and it still is Hilliard, though not as fast as Fournette.

“He’s a great back, and he comes in and gives us speed outside, and he can run between the tackles,” Hilliard said of Fournette recently.

Hilliard, a 6-0, 233-pound senior who was the No. 9 tailback in the country coming out of Patterson High in 2011, is now a likely backup as he never quite answered the potential he showed in his freshman season of 2011.

“My role is anything they want me to play – fullback, halfback, spread,” he said. “I’ll do what they ask.”

He does not blame anyone for that lost potential.

“I had to accept that some of that was on me, and I’ve learned from that,” Hilliard said in an interview with Tiger Rag Magazine. “I haven’t put up the numbers I wanted to put up.”

Hilliard made the SEC coaches’ All-Freshmen team in 2011 and was the freshman of the week after gaining 102 yards on 19 carries with a touchdown in the win over Arkansas. A backup with no starts, he became Coach Les Miles’ go-to back near the goal line as he rushed for eight touchdowns, which were the most in a season by an LSU freshman since starting tailback Justin Vincent had 10 in 2003.

That all happened with LSU was full of backs in 2011. But Hilliard managed to make his mark with 336 rushing yards and a 5.4-yard average behind Michael Ford (756 yards), Spencer Ware (707) and Alfred Blue (539). That after carrying just four times through LSU’s first six games.

Then against Tennessee, Hilliard touched the ball only once, but his meaningless though tenacious 13-yard run in a 38-7 blowout impressed Miles so much that he put him in the mix. He had 65 yards on 10 carries with two touchdowns against Auburn the next week when Ware was suspended for the game, 59 on nine carries against Ole Miss and 72 on eight carries in the SEC Championship win over Georgia. This was all so promising for a nephew of LSU tailback great Dalton Hilliard of Patterson, but there have only been flashes here and there ever since.

“On the field, things haven’t gone exactly how I wanted them to,” he said.

He admitted he fell out of shape in both the 2012 and ’13 seasons as he rushed for 464 yards in his sophomore year and just 310 in 2013.

“I haven’t put up the numbers I wanted to put up in my three years here,” he said.

Hilliard, who has two young daughters, did decide to negotiate some significant numbers off the football field. Just a handful of hours away from the graduation goal line, he decided to remain at LSU for his senior season last January and will graduate.

“I want to get my degree, but I also want to leave knowing I gave 100 percent for this football team,” he said.

Despite the addition of Fournette, another stud freshman tailback in Darrell Williams and senior Terrence Magee, who was LSU’s leading rusher last season with 626 yards, Hilliard may just find himself in the mix again at times during his last hurrah season.

“I think Kenny Hilliard is lighter and faster than he’s ever been,” Miles said Monday. “I think he’s going to be his best back.”

It was Hilliard who led all rushers in the Tigers’ last scrimmage of camp last week as he gained 100 yards.

“Kenny had a really good camp, and today I’d have to say Kenny was a very special back,” Miles said after the scrimmage.

He has always had the makings of a special back.

“If it takes you four years to get it right, it takes you four years to get it right,” Hilliard said. “I’ve learned from my mistakes, and I’m trying to make up for them. I’m getting it right now.”